The Sun Fires Another Powerful X-Flare, Causing Radio Blackouts Across America (Video)

Sunspot AR 3842 remains active as it leaves the western edge of the Sun and triggers an X2.1 solar flare on Monday afternoon (October 7).

The Sunspotwhich also unleashed the historical X9.05 Solar Flare Last Thursday (October 3) – the strongest flare in seven years – the X2.1 triggered at 3:13 p.m. EDT (1913 GMT) on Monday.

Solar flares are classified on a four-point scalefrom the B class with the least power to the X class at the top. The most intense burst of solar energy ever recorded is estimated to have come from a solar flare in 2003 an X45!

Close-up of a brilliant white beam of light erupting from the sun's orange surface — NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this view of an X2.1 solar flare that erupted from the Sun on October 7, 2024. (Image credit: NASA/SDO and the science teams AIA, EVE and HMI, helioviewer.org)

Monday's strong X2.1 is not as strong as this record-breaking outbreak Solar flare produced a significant amount of ultraviolet radiation, causing shortwave radio blackouts in both North and South America and over the Pacific Ocean.

Scientists at the Space Weather Prediction Center of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) confirmed this their forecast discussion that there was the signature of a coronal mass ejection (CME) was also thrown into space by Monday's eruption. Currently, forecasters are still analyzing the data to determine whether the CME is on track Earth and whether we will experience any effects.

Related: The Biggest Solar Flare Since 2017 Erupts from the Sun and Earth is in the Line of Fire (Video)

A CME is an impressive emission from the sun's outer atmosphere coronathis is a combination of magnetic field and plasma. Such explosions of energetic particles generally take a few days to reach Earth and interact with our magnetic field, and meteorologists rely on data from coronagraphs to better understand the speed and direction of a CME.

In addition to creating whole Aurora show in middle latitudes, as we have seen again and again this yearEarth-controlled CMEs need to be monitored for their potential to affect satellites and power grids if they are strong enough. The different levels of impact are explained NOAA space weather scales which classify geomagnetic storms, solar storms and radio outages from 1 to 5 depending on their severity.

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